Thank you, Adnams beach cleaners!

Southwold beach had its spring clean on Saturday 11th March as 57 enthusiastic volunteers grabbed their grabbers and picked up their pickers, removing anything and everything that isn’t meant to be on our beaches.
As always, a big thank you to every one of our brilliant beach clean volunteers, you really do all make a difference. It’s great to see volunteers both old and new, spreading the word with friends and families about beach litter. It is also heartening to know that not only do we have a lot of local support, we also are lucky enough to welcome volunteers from further afield to come help us clean Southwold beach.
Over a couple of hours our volunteers managed to collect and remove 35 bin-bags worth of litter; everything from small bits of plastic and rope, to crisp and sweet packets, to the more unusual items such as half a wheelie bin lid and 3m of cabling.
The litter we find is still dominated by plastic pieces washing in from the sea, often unidentifiable. However, we did find more public litter this time compared to our last clean in September. Tidal surges and storms will have brought in lots from the sea and uncovered pieces which were previously covered by the sand.
We survey what we find in the first 100m and report back to the Marine Conservation Society to help with their national annual beach litter research. We also support the MCS via a donation of the proportion of profits from our seasonal beer, Fat Sprat, which is out now in cask at selected pubs until the end of April.
A nice dry and (almost) sunny day kept us all going - that, and the thought of a well-earned sit down and drink at The Harbour Inn afterwards.
The next beach clean will be a Saturday in June but we haven’t quite finalised the date yet so keep your eyes peeled for when we do announce it!
You can e-mail me at benedict.orchard@adnams.co.uk to register your interest in future cleans.
Thanks again to every volunteer – see you again soon!
You can view photos from the day on Flickr and read about the EDPs coverage of the clean here.